Technology Vital to Emergency Response
Communicating effectively in today's world requires cell phones, standard telephones, e-mail, and the Internet, and communication is never more important than during an emergency.
Because the University's communication systems must not fail during a catastrophe, University Information Services (UIS) is an active partner in Georgetown's Emergency Response Team. A cooperative effort with participants from virtually every campus department, the ERT meets every week to evaluate, test, and update the University's planned response to a variety of potential emergencies.
A crucial component of the ERT's mission is to ensure that the appropriate resources needed to recover from a disaster are in place. From a technology perspective, this has an added benefit of improving Georgetown University's communication infrastructure.
For instance, UIS is working with cell phone carriers to improve on-campus cellular coverage. Better cellular coverage is a great convenience on any day of the year but experience has shown that cellular phones are a crucial component of an effective emergency response program as well. UIS and the ERT have made sure that the University's top officials and our technology leaders all have cell phones and a plan to communicate with each should a disaster be declared. They have also developed a plan to ensure that contact information is up-to-date and accessible.
Part of the ERT's disaster recovery plan is to gather the University's top officials in designated crisis command centers. UIS has its own established crisis command center as well, where its senior staff and designated technology leads will assemble. UIS tests the voice and data circuits at these centers every month to ensure that they will function properly during an emergency.
Of course, the entire University network and applications must function as well. Recent improvements in the University's voice and data network infrastructure guarantee that it can better serve the University in times of crisis. No longer are all the University connections to telecommunications carriers housed solely in the Ryan building. New connection points have been built in two on-campus locations so that a disaster in one building will not sever telephone and Internet access for the entire University. Additionally, to guard against outages caused by off-campus disasters, UIS has added a tertiary phone carrier and a secondary Internet carrier to the network. Similarly, UIS is planning a secondary server host facility for the applications used at Georgetown University.
Over the last few years, UIS has continued to fine tune recovery plans that guard administrative core systems such as Genesys and PeopleSoft against data loss or equipment failure. Should something catastrophic happen to the facility that houses these core systems, backup equipment is waiting at an IBM “hot site” facility at a remote location. UIS teams are dispatched to these “hot sites” to recover the systems, with a goal of full system recovery within 72 hours.
The University's voice and data networks must continue to operate during a disaster, not only so emergency personnel can communicate with each other, but also to keep the Georgetown University community in touch with the outside world. Maintaining our ability to communicate through cell phones, broadcast telephone messages, e-mail, and the Georgetown University web site is a crucial part of UIS and the ERT's mission.
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